As you may know if you've been a gamer for enough time, historically the thorn in Nintendo's side has been the lack of third party support. That was partly because of Nintendo's own fault, with many developers reporting that relationships with Nintendo were difficult.
It looks like times are changing with the Switch, though, particularly for indie developers. Zoink CEO and creative director Klaus Lyngeled talked to GamesIndustry about the difference between Nintendo during the Wii era and now.
I also did Wii titles, and back from the Wii days it's very different. They are much more approachable, they are much more interested in you, it's easier for us to get a kit, and... it's become a lot easier for us to actually publish something on the eShop. I feel like there are a lot of indies who are really interested in Switch now. They really are pushing for it and they want to have a new platform to release something on.
Zoink's Lyngeled also mentioned that the development tools for the Nintendo Switch are much better, which is certainly very important for indies due to their usually limited resources.
When we tried to do Zombie Vikings for Wii U - when I got Unity I could see it just wasn't going to work, it was too slow an engine; then we got Unity for Switch and we saw directly, 'wow it's actually working' and the tools are much better. So that part is very important for most indies. Most indies are using Unity and that makes a huge difference. It feels like they are pushing Unity more to make it good from the beginning.
Indie games are definitely a good match for the Switch since they are usually not very demanding in terms of computing power. While the Switch may not be able to render AAA games made for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, it certainly can run smoothly the vast majority of indie titles released for those platforms.
Zoink just announced a new game, Flipping Death, which will be available for the Switch as well as other platforms (presumably the ones cited above). They're also working on Fe under the EA Originals label.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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